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June 07, 2008

TV & Top Models & Reading...

e-Readers plus Smart Pen technology? Give me those and we'd all be reading more, I bet. Add college student discounts, get rid of heavy text books this way, and...reading will be revolutionized.

Blogging? Reading? We're all reading less as much as I hate to admit it. Chez nous, we like Supermodel Tyra Banks, the new Oprah some say. Her show, America's Next Top Model, is about the only family show we watch. Or used to, before the youngest went off to college. It started as a daughter thing, then a daughter/dad thing. Now it is a husband/wife thing and it aggravates my spouse because I recorded the series and watched it completely out of order.

To my daughter, now home from college, I say: Somehow your Dad and I never got the last episode.

My book-loving daughter to me: I no longer watch tv. (but later she is on the couch in front of the tv while I do her piles of laundry. Did she do any wash second semester?). I ask her to go hike w/ me... she has blisters on her feet. "I'm feeling stupid," she says... "I've not been reading."

Ah. The college life? If only she had eBooks that allowed her to take notes and write on the pages. This is what we need for learning today. Don't you think all of our children would be better off not toting those huge backpacks and heavy text books?

Lauri has this: "by the time the average American child is five years old she will have logged more TV hours than the hours she will spend talking to her father IN HER ENTIRE LIFETIME." I will tell you that there was a lot of good time spent between daughter and dad. Maybe it started when he made efforts to get involved with things that interested her. Like fashion. Like watching America's Next top Model.

Top TV Shows this season didn't include that show but they did include: American Idol, Dancing w/ The Stars, Desperate Housewives, House, CSI, Grey's Anatomy. I'll turn on Desperate Housewives if I remember to. I'd rather be reading but, like most of us, I'm reading less and spending more time online.

Zoby's Reading and Book Buying Habits of Americans (pdf) via social media has this: Democrats (56%) and independents (50%) are more likely than are Republicans (41%) to shop at independent bookstores; 80% do not plan to buy an e-reader; 50% buy fewer than 10 books a year for self; 14% buy more than 20; 53% buy 1 - 5 books that never get read (how big is that to-read stack at your house?); suggestions from friends and family are the strongest buying influences; and -- tada (not surprising)...younger readers are most likely to judge a book by its cover. More people report spending less time than more time in the past year reading books with 65% reporting that more time is spent online.

I'm among the 8% that confess to writing in books. If only it could be done w/ e-reading.

How to Save the Book Publishing Industry is a post by Henry Blodget. He notes book publishers sold .9% more books in 2007 than 2006 and says publishers should publish electronic copies for 20% or less of the hardcover price. I say, how about discounts for college students and having e-readers that can take notes?????? Hello publishing industry and tech inventors?

Amazon.com will have 125,000 titles for download. Amazon's Jeff Bezos says Kindle e-books now account for 6% percent of sales among the 125,000 titles available on the site in both electronic and print formats. The e-reader Kindle's price has been lowered to $359. Again, discounts for students?

Books pile up by my bedside and I dream of better eReaders. Will it happen? This bibliophile wants to know.

There is an issue here. First, we berate ourselves (justifiably) about being sedentary. Secondly, we are accused of spending too much time online (I am just assuming we are READING). Lastly, we grieve, because we might possibly read less than we used to? I think polls may be based on the question "do you read BOOKS as much as you used to"? If all of the articles and stories I now read online, were newspapers , magazines and books, I think my stack today would be taller than it used to be.